Leaving Prince Rupert, we set sailed southwest across the top of Pitt Island.  I set the mainsail, winds were 10 knots as we headed into Ogden Channel south through Petrel Channel along the inside of McCauley Island. Tim took a nap as I navigate through drifting logs, flotsam and jetsam and a tug towing a barge to PR.  Both sails full, miles gained with gusts up to 20 yet the waters were fairly calm.  It was a good omen to stay inside of McCauley today.  

This was the first day in weeks that we haven't sighted whales.  Shorebirds abound, murrelets and what we think are Dunlins scoot just over the surface near shore.  This is a very different land from any other we have yet encountered, stark, narrow and deep waterways.  The highlands jutting straight up are alpine meadows interspersed with granite slabs. Sheets of frothy runoff glissade through old growth forest to gurgle into the channel. Thousands of rocky coves and small beaches cut into the land amid piles of driftwood.

I scan the near shore with field glasses to spy on bears but none to be seen.  Maybe the salmon have already started to run up the myriad tiny waterways to the almost endless number upland lakes and they have retired upward for the main course of the summer meal.  When the salmon are gone, dessert will be berries before winter sets in again.

We have anchored in Newcombe Bay for the night, lonely as a loon on a great and vast watery wilderness.  A squall drifts in from over the island, the boat complains to the anchor.  All is good, all is well, all is wild and beautiful.